Neville Butler’s research into human development over time improved the lives of children and families throughout the UK and around the world. Through his tireless efforts he produced priceless information about the health, development, social wellbeing, education and lifestyles of thousands of British families.

He initiated and sustained two of Britain’s world-renowned research resources, namely the National Child Development Study (1958) and the British Cohort Study (1970). Where others concentrated efforts on only one aspect of child development, he pioneered a multidisciplinary approach. His example and publications are used by researchers all over the world.

The ultimate objective of these observational and interventional studies is to improve health, education and family life for future generations. Important medical, social and developmental indices arising from the data are of immense value to both practitioners and policymakers in medicine, education and social science.

It is the longitudinal aspects of these two unique continuing studies that gained Butler a national and international reputation. Many studies have produced valuable cross-sectional information, but this cannot compare with the complete picture of a generation which ensues from longitudinal work.

Without Butler’s dedication spanning nearly 50 years it is difficult to see how these studies could have survived. His charismatic leadership brought together teachers, medical officers, health visitors and nurses to carry out the national fieldwork voluntarily.

Butler liaised with policymakers in both Houses of Parliament and presented evidence based on his work to various select committees in the Commons, including the Social Services Committee. In addition the work was an important source of evidence for three royal commissions. (Plowden 1967, Court 1976 and Warnock 1978).

Remarkably, he embraced all this national and international work entirely voluntarily and in parallel with full-time clinical duties within the NHS.

Neville Butler was born into a medical family in 1920 and educated at Epsom College and Charing Cross Hospital Medical School. In the 1950s and 1960s he had two spells at the Royal Hospital for Sick Children, Great Ormond Street, before moving to Bristol in 1966. Here he was consultant paediatrician at the Royal Hospital for Sick Children and Professor of Child Health at the University of Bristol until retirement in 1985. He was awarded the highest NHS merit award (A+) for his clinical achievements.

Butler helped to bring together obstetric and newborn care after his original national perinatal mortality survey, carried out for the National Birthday Trust Fund. This was the first in the world and still serves as a model. The results, which have been used widely by obstetricians, paediatricians, midwives and general practitioners, emphasised the need for careful selection of high-risk mothers, better care in labour and for more postmortem examinations on babies dying around the birth period. It was also one of the forerunners of the widely used clinicopathological perinatal conferences.

Butler’s definitive work on antenatal care has done much to change the way birth is managed in Britain and forms a basis of current perinatal care. For these achievements he was made a Fellow of the Royal College of Obstetricians. Other medical honours included the Harding Award for Services to Handicapped Children and an invitation to present the Cuthbert Lockyer Lecture at the Royal College of Physicians.

In order to ensure the continuity of multidisciplinary longitudinal studies in the UK and worldwide, Butler founded the International Centre for Child Studies (ICCS) in 1983, which he continued to direct until his death. This led in 1997 to the establishment of a sister organisation in the US, the International Centre for Child and Family Studies, of which he was president. He was also a trustee of Longview, a foundation dedicated to putting the results of longitudinal studies at the heart of public policymaking. Butler realised that the British findings could form a blueprint for both developed and developing countries, and forged links with more than 40 countries. As a consultant with the WHO, Butler advised on how to adapt the UK work on population studies to many other countries.

Recognising the value of these studies, the Economic and Social Research Council underwrote support for the foreseeable future. This national resource is housed in the Centre for Longitudinal Studies (CLS) at the Institute of Education at London University, where Butler was a visiting professor.

The research resources now include the new Millennium Cohort Study, comprising a study of more than 19,000 babies (with added representation for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland), with which Butler worked closely from inception. The centre has provided information for the Government on social exclusion, problems of literacy and numeracy, and also on medical conditions such as diabetes and asthma.

Butler’s vision of using longitudinal studies to understand human lives was ahead of its time. Through the advances in modern information and communications technology this vision is now being realised on an ever widening scale.

Butler is survived by his two daughters.

Professor Neville Butler, paediatrician and social researcher, was born on July 6, 1920. He died on February 22, 2007, aged 86